Oh good.
They've managed to come up with a "gun" that generates <85% of the muzzle velocity of the current German tank gun, while taking up vastly more space and using huge amounts of electrical current.
Woohoo!

Oh good.
They've managed to come up with a "gun" that generates <85% of the muzzle velocity of the current German tank gun, while taking up vastly more space and using huge amounts of electrical current.
Woohoo!

Well you have to start somewhere. Anyway I got the impression they weren't using full power, whatever that may be.

Well you have to start somewhere. Anyway I got the impression they weren't using full power, whatever that may be.

"Start" is a bit of a cop-out.
I have magazine cuttings on the development of rail guns (British and US) dating back to the late 70s.
From memory: Kirkudbright (MoD establishment in Scotland) achieved 4,000 m/ sec (i.e. 2.5 times the one in the video) in 1980.
University of Canberra got 5,900 m/ sec at least 8 years ago.

Well you have to start somewhere. Anyway I got the impression they weren't using full power, whatever that may be.

"Start" is a bit of a cop-out.
I have magazine cuttings on the development of rail guns (British and US) dating back to the late 70s.
From memory: Kirkudbright (MoD establishment in Scotland) achieved 4,000 m/ sec (i.e. 2.5 times the one in the video) in 1980.
University of Canberra got 5,900 m/ sec at least 8 years ago.

Okay they could have cranked up the power a bit. It sounded like the main purpose of this test was to demonstrate they could use a projectile without it tumbling, and they succeeded. Now, they can work on creating even more powerful railguns.

I won't be happy until they can put projectiles into space with accuracy.

Escape velocity is, what, ~11 km/ sec?
It's not so much a question of materials withstanding the velocity so much as the acceleration.
Using a longer "barrel" - i.e. turn into a linear accelerator rather than a gun - would help. That reduces the acceleration to more manageable levels.

Escape velocity is, what, ~11 km/ sec?
It's not so much a question of materials withstanding the velocity so much as the acceleration.
Using a longer "barrel" - i.e. turn into a linear accelerator rather than a gun - would help. That reduces the acceleration to more manageable levels.

I would think the acceleration would stop at the end of the railgun barrel, so you would need a muzzle velocity that would carry the projectile all the way. It may be exactly what you said a longer barrel to get the job done.